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Putonghua phonemes and allophones!!
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miranets -

So I have been given this onerous task of mapping out all the vowel and consonant phonemes and
allophones for Mandarin. Consonants, easy enough - but vowels are another nightmare.

Firstly, some "clues" given by my lecturer have all but contradicted standard knowledge that is
out there on the internet. I have always assumed that all initial consonants were phonemes, but as
seen from phonetic distribution the sounds zh- ch- sh- and j- q- x- are allophones. Is anyone else
aware of other consonant allophones?

(looking at a pinyin combination chart such as http://www.pinyin.info/rules/initials_finals.html
helps to point out areas of complementary/contrastive distribution)

As for vowels, I have no idea how to begin looking for allophones. Do I assume there are six
phonemes, a e i o u uu? What about tone?

Does anyone know where to find an IPA vowel chart for Mandarin? (the funny square shape with
back/forward round/unround distinctions)

Thanks



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shibo77 -

Traditionally 同位 or allophone only apply to initials, not to finals (rimes), if the rimes are
recognised as having the same sound then it wouldn't be a separate rime anymore...

I don't think that it is correct to say /tʂ/, /tʂʰ/, /ʂ/ and /tɕ/, /tɕʰ/, /ɕ/ are
allophones because they don't occur with the same vowels, these phonemes are restricted to their
specific vowel environments, so there are no minimal pair comparisons to be done. You may know
that in many languages the phonemes /m/, /n/, /ŋ/ only occur around specific vowel environments,
they are not allophones.

Allophones in Standard Mandarin are probably /ɻ/|/ʐ/, /p/|/b/, /t/|/d/, /k/|/g/.


-Shibo










againstwind -

I found tow IPA charts for Pinyin, but it's still not complete. Hope helpful.

http://www.zdic.net/appendix/f10.htm
http://www.sinoling.com/yinbiao_cn.htm



Quote:

I don't think that it is correct to say /ʈʂ/, /ʈʂʰ/, /ʂ/ and /tɕ/, /tɕʰ/, /ɕ/ are
allophones because they don't occur with the same vowels

Agree.










HashiriKata -



Quote:


Originally Posted by shibo77

I don't think that it is correct to say /ʈʂ/, /ʈʂʰ/, /ʂ/ and /tɕ/, /tɕʰ/, /ɕ/ are
allophones because they don't occur with the same vowels, these phonemes are restricted to their
specific vowel environments, so there are no minimal pair comparisons to be done.


Can you ellaborate? The statement denies but does not properly argue against the allophonic status
of /ʈʂ/, /ʈʂʰ/, /ʂ/ and /tɕ/, /tɕʰ/, /ɕ/.
(By the way, how do you get these symbols /ʈʂ/, /ʈʂʰ/, /ʂ/, etc displayed correctly on the
computer screen? What font is needed?)

I guess what miranets meant by "allophones for vowels" are those vowels such as in the following
pairs: ban-bang, ben-beng, bin-bing, etc.










Lugubert -



Quote:


Originally Posted by HashiriKata

By the way, how do you get these symbols /ʈʂ/, /ʈʂʰ/, /ʂ/, etc displayed correctly on the
computer screen? What font is needed?)


I don't see them on my screen either, but if I copy them into Word, they appear correctly in the
font MS Gothic.










miranets -

So from the links provided (thanks ) they are still saying there are 6 vowel phonemes, but how do
you justify the 4 tones, wouldn't they be distinct phonemes? I am so confused...










shibo77 -

My default is the Unicode encoding, and it hasn't displayed anything wrong for me yet. I think it
uses the fonts provided by the SIL. You can look at the chart provided by miranets
(http://www.pinyin.info/rules/initials_finals.html), compare zh/tʂ/, ch/tʂʰ/, sh/ʂ/ and
j/tɕ/, q/tɕʰ/, x/ɕ/, there aren't any overlap, phones carrying semantic meaning in Mandarin
formed from zh/tʂ/, ch/tʂʰ/, sh/ʂ/ exist in different vowel environments from those of j/tɕ/,
q/tɕʰ/, x/ɕ/, so one cannot even make a comparison between zh/tʂ/, ch/tʂʰ/, sh/ʂ/ and
j/tɕ/, q/tɕʰ/, x/ɕ/, they are considered restricted phonemes similar to /m/, /n/, /ŋ/ in
English, but if you want to say they are allophones there has to be a comparison showing that
semantic meaning doesn't change when you change the sound of the word. For example /ɻ/|/ʐ/,
/p/|/b/, /t/|/d/, /k/|/g/, /v/|/u/ could be allophones because pronouncing /b/ instead of the
standard /p/ doesn't change its semantic meaning, similar to in Spanish pronouncing /v/ for /b/ or
/β/, or in English /pʰ/ for /p/.

Tones are not phonemes, tones are tonemes, they are one level higher than phonemes, tones only
exist at the syllabic level in Mandarin.

-Shibo












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